Darkness
by momoPWNSyou
Summary: Series of three Aangcentric oneshots. First one: Aang's childhood and the night he ran away. Heavy angst. Rated for safty.


Set pre-show. First in a chronological series of Aang-centric one-shots. Heavy angst, don't read if you like happy endings. What can I say, when I'm depressed, I write angsty fics.

If I owned Avatar, I would be named Mike or Brian.

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Aang never liked the dark. As a young child, before he received his arrows, he would always see the monstrous shark-dragons and terrible tiger-bears lurking in the darkest, shadowy corners of his room, where the candle's light did not reach. They were just waiting to devour him, he _knew_ it. Even air, his own element, normally a comfort, would betray him in the dark. It would howl through the windows, making ghastly noises and sending a shiver down his young spine. And sometimes, the wind would blow out the candle.

And in those terrible, completely _dark_ moments, Aang swears that he can see glimpses of other people's lives, vividly, as though he had lived them. These people were from all four nations, and they were _always_ benders. And Aang doesn't know why, but he feels connected to these people, like he knows them.

But he wished he didn't. Oh, how he wished he had never seen these strange men and women. In the dark, in the brief glimpses into the lives of these others, Aang saw things that no child should even know about, let alone be forced to witness. He saw violence, and blood, and _death_. So many people died, in many different ways.

And there always seems to be fighting, always seems to be war. He feels as though the time of peace that he and the rest of the world live in cannot last. In the day, comforted by the bright rays of hope that shine through his window, Aang laughs at himself and his grim thoughts, reminding himself that he has friends in all of the four nations, and none of them wish for war more than he. But at night, at that chilling time when the candle dies, he can almost see the war looming, darkening the horizon of days to come.

Years later, when he runs away from the Southern Air Temple, it is dark outside. He has his arrows now, he is twelve years old, and he simply _cannot take it anymore_. He doesn't want to be the Avatar. He can't bear all the responsibility that is thrust upon his young shoulders; it will crush him beneath its immense weight. And that responsibility, that terrible burden, is driving him away from everything and everyone that he loves. He had lived in the Southern Air Temple his whole life, it is his _home_. He can't just leave it, can't just be sent to live on the other side of the world. He grew up with the children here, he has known them since birth, and now they shun him, simply because he is different than them. And the elders want him to leave Gyatso. Gyatso, who has been a father to him, who had been the only one who could truly make the boy feel safe in the dark. He loves the old man more then he even loves himself. He can't have him be taken away, he just can't.

So he runs. He runs and he runs and he runs, until everything blurs together in a torrent of emotion and exhaustion. He runs out into the cold, dark world, where the line is blurred between his own tears and the pouring rain. He finds his way, stumbling and confused, to the bison paddock, where he cries himself hoarse looking for Appa. When he finds his bison, he jumps on and takes off in the first direction that Appa turns. He flies through the storm clouds, unthinking, just headed away, far from where he could be found.

As he flies over the ocean, the sky only grows darker. The sea seems completely black, a mirror of the night sky above. The wind pulls and tugs at the boy, trying to pull him off his flying beast. The rain pelts down, obscuring his vision to the point where he cannot tell the difference between sea and sky. Lightning flashes and Aang's thoughts run together in a panicked haze.

From the ocean, a great wave rises, a beast come from the very heart of the sea. It soars into the sky, towering higher and higher, growing in size until it seems impossible that such a huge body of water could rise without draining the very ocean from whence it came.  
The blackness grows before Aang, and terror consumes him. The darkness, the wave, is going to engulf him, is going to drag him deep into its depths, and he is going to _die_.

The wave comes crashing down, and all thoughts are lost, he's drowning, drowning, drowning in the darkness. No struggle can stop this, the darkness has won, all his fears are true, he can never win against that which he cannot fight. He slips into unconsciousness, loosing his grip on the reins, and hangs suspended in time and fate, sinking in the inky blackness.

Bright light flashes, and the boy will sleep for a century, while the war he feared ravages the world.

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So there's your daily dose of angst. Much thanks to my beta, PageMisstress over on deviantart. This story wouldn't be half of what it is without her. Please review, it would make me happy! Don't flame, I'll use 'em to roast marshmellows!


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